Upgrading your website from Joomla 1.5 to Joomla 2.5 - Eric Tiggeler

Upgrading your website
to Joomla 2.5

A step-by-step guide to updating your website
from Joomla 1.5 to Joomla 2.5

Eric Tiggeler | http://www.joomm.net

You have a website, built with the Joomla! 1.5 content management system.
However, a new version of Joomla has been released. Joomla 2.5 offers you a
range of exciting new features and capabilities. How should you go about if
you want to upgrade your existing website to Joomla 2.5? This appendix to
the Joomla! 2.5 Beginner’s Guide by Eric Tiggeler offers you a clearly
illustrated, step-by-step guide on upgrading to Joomla 2.5.

Joomla! 2.5 Beginner’s Guide www.joomm.net

Contents

Contents .................................................................................................................................................. 2
1 Preparing the upgrade ..................................................................................................................... 3
2 Making a backup copy of the old site .............................................................................................. 3
3 Updating Joomla with jUpgrade ...................................................................................................... 4
4 Customizing the new site................................................................................................................. 7
4.1 Updating the template and extensions ............................................................................ 7
4.2 Assigning modules to their new positions ....................................................................... 7
5 Replacing the old site by the new one ............................................................................................ 9
6 Read more about Joomla 2.5 ......................................................................................................... 12

Upgrading to Joomla 2.5 2


1 Preparing the upgrade
The changes between Joomla 1.5 and its long term successor 2.5 are substantial. That’s why
upgrading isn’t just a question of a few clicks – in fact, it’s a full site migration rather than just an
update. This is rather complex process that can’t be automated. However, by following the steps
described below, anyone can successfully upgrade their Joomla 1.5 CMS and all its basic content
(articles and default extensions).

A word of warning before you begin: check if there are new versions available of the extensions and
template you’ve used in your 1.5 website. After all, extensions and templates for Joomla 1.5 won’t
work in Joomla 2.5, and these can’t be upgraded automatically. After upgrading the CMS, you’ll have
a new 2.5-powered website with the all the contents of your old site, but you’ll have to manually re-
install the desired template and extensions.

However, it’s a good idea to see this migration as an opportunity to clean up your site, give it a new
look and maybe install and use other extensions than the ones you needed for your 1.5 powered
website.

 What if you don’t want to upgrade?

You have a Joomla 1.5-powered site that’s running OK ... why should you switch to 2.5?
Admittedly, the upgrade process will take some time and effort. However, Joomla 1.5 won’t
be supported after September 2012. This means that security fixes won’t be developed
anymore. From a security point of view, you don’t want to run your site on an outdated CMS.

2 Making a backup copy of the old site
The first step is to make a backup of your existing site. The best solution for this is the free Akeeba
Backup Joomla 1.5 component, available for both Joomla 1.5 and 2.5.

1. Download Akeeba Backup for 1.5 from www.akeebabackup.com, login to the backend of the
1.5 site and install the component.
2. Create a backup with the basic settings by clicking Backup Now.



3. Once the backup is complete, click on Administer backup files and download the backup file
to your computer (click the Part 00 link in the Manage & Download column):

Should something go wrong, you now have a backup of your working 1.5 site.

3 Updating Joomla with jUpgrade
To upgrade Joomla to version 2.5, a free tool is available. It is an extension for Joomla 1.5, called
JUpgrade. Upgrading using this component takes the following steps:

1. You install the JUpgrade component in Joomla 1.5
2. JUpgrade will download the Joomla 2.5 software.
3. JUpgrade installs a 2.5 version of your site in the folder www.yoursite.com/jupgrade. This
way, you’ll have both your original site and the upgraded site (in the jupgrade folder).
4. Change and tweak the upgraded site as needed, and move it from the jupgrade folder to it’s
new location.

Let’s see how this works in more detail.

1. Download jUpgrade from http://extensions.joomla.org (just do a Web search for ‘jupgrade
download’ to quickly find the URL).

2. Install the Jupgrade component in your Joomla 1.5 site in the usual way (via Extensions).



3. After the installation, navigate to the component. You see a notice telling you to enable the
System – Mootools Upgrade plugin, which is necessary for jUpgrade to be able to function:

4. Click the link to jump to Extensions > Plugins and enable the System – Mootools Upgrade
plugin:

5. Navigate to the jUpgrade component again and click the huge Start upgrade button:

6. The upgrade process starts. In the JUpgrade screen the progress is displayed. Don’t worry if
the steps involved take a few minutes; jUpgrades downloads and installs a lot of files.



7. jUpgrade downloads Joomla, decompresses the Joomla package, upgrades the current
Joomla installation and (try and) upgrade third party extensions. Finally, you’ll see a notice
that the upgrade process has finished:

8. Click the Site or Administrator link to visit the upgraded site or the backend of that site.

After the upgrade, you have two sites: the old site is still available, but now there’s also a copy of the
site that has been upgraded to Joomla 2.5. This copy is placed in the jupgrade folder. The new site
contains all articles from your existing 1.5 website; sections and categories from the old site have
become categories and subcategories. But as jUpgrade cannot update your template, the new site
uses the default template from Joomla 2.5, called Beez 2. As an example, the upgraded version of the
Joomm.net website looked as displayed below: the homepage content is displayed, but the site uses
the Beez 2 template and menus and other modules aren’t displayed:



4 Customizing the new site
So now you have a basic, working version of your upgraded site in the jupgrade folder of your
webserver. Before you can replace the old site, you need to adjust the upgraded site so that it looks
and functions as desired.

4.1 Updating the template and extensions
First, you need to install a new version of your existing template. If this isn’t available, you’ll want to
use a completely different template. There are many hundreds of templates avaible for the new
release; all templates for Joomla 1.6 and higher will do. Install the new template through the
Extensions menu in the backend.

 You’ll probably also want to adjust the template itself, for example by replacing the default
image by your own logo image. The process is no different from the customization of any
other template; see chapter 11 of the Joomla! 2.5 Beginner’s Guide for details.

If your 1.5-powered site contained extensions that are not available for 2.5, you'll need to replace
those too. Depending on the number of extensions you used and their complexity, this can be an
elaborate process. See chapter 10 of the Joomla! 2.5 Beginner’s Guide for more information on
finding and installing extensions.

4.2 Assigning modules to their new positions
The default Joomla modules (such as menu modules, Banner and Custom HTML modules) from your
old site back will be still available in backend of the new site. However, they won’t show up
immediately after te upgrade, as they will have to be assigned to the appropriate module positions in
new template. After all, your Joomla 2.5 template will contain other module positions than the old
template.

How do you assign your modules to the appropriate positions in the new template?

1. First, let’s find out what modules and module positions were used in the old site. Log in to
the backend of that site and go to Extensions > Module Manager. You now see an overview
of the used modules (in the Module Name column) and their positions (in the Position
column).



2. The next step is to determine which positions available in the new template. In this example
I’ve used the 2.5 version of a great free template I downloaded from www.joomlapraise.com,
called Genesis. If you use another template, the process is similar. Go to Extensions >
Template Manager and click the Templates tab. Find the template you’re using and click
Preview:

3. In a new screen, the list of module positions is displayed in a full-screen preview of the
template:

Keep this browser screen open to use it as a reference showing all available module
positions.
4. To get menu modules and other modules to show up in the appropriate places on your new
website, assign these modules one by one to the desired module positions.



5 Replacing the old site by the new one
Now your new Joomla 2.5-powered is ready to be published, you need copy the new site from
jupgrade folder (www.example.com/jupgrade) to the root folder (www.example.com). The old site
can now be deleted. To do this, we’ll use two tools:

 the FTP software program you’ve used before when installing Joomla (in our example we’ll use
the free FileZilla program);
 the Akeeba Backup component.

These are the steps involved in backing up and restoring your site to its new location.

1. Download the Akeeba Backup component for Joomla 2.5 from www.akeebabackup.com and
the Akeeba Kickstart tool. Install the component in the backend of the Joomla 2.5 site.
2. Navigate in the backend of your site to Components > Akeeba Backup and click Backup Now
to create a backup copy of the new site.

3. Click Administer Backup Files and download the backup file to your computer. This is a
compressed file with the extension jpa. You will use this file to install a new copy of the
website in its new location, the root folder of your webserver.
4. Before you can install the new site, delete the old one. Start up your FTP program and
navigate to the contents of the root folder, www.example.com. On your web server, this
folder may have another name, such as httpdocs or www. Select all contents of the root
folder, except for the folder jupgrade:



5. Now delete all selected folders and files. (In the FileZilla program, you do this by right-clicking
and choosing the Delete). It may take a few minutes before all contents are deleted.
6. To restore the backup file to the new location, upload the Akeeba backup file (a file with the
extension jpa) you saved to your computer in step three to the root folder.
7. To restore the backup file, you need the Akeeba Kickstart tool you downloaded earlier as a
zip file. Unpack this compressed file and upload its contents (most importantly the
kickstart.php file) to the root folder of the web server. The root folder should now contain
both the backup file (the jpa file) and the kickstart file:

8. You’re all set to start installing the backup file to its new location. In your web browser,
navigate to the the URL of your website, adding /kickstart.php. The full URL should be similar
to this example: www.example.com/kickstart.php. The first screen of the Akeeba Kickstart
tool is displayed:



9. Click the link at the bottom of the notice to start the installer. In the next screen, click Start:

10. In the next screen, continue the installation with the default settings by clicking Run the
installer. Akeeba Backup checks the current settings. Click Next.
11. A warning message is displayed, as you are restoring the backup site to a different URL.
Akeeba prompts you to delete the current database information. Click No to keep the
current database settings.



12. In the following screens, the default settings are okay. Click Next to procede to the final
screen. Finally, Akeeba prompts you to remove the installation directory. You're taken to the
new location of the 2.5. site. Your new site is live!
13. Finally, use your FTP program to remove the jupgrade folder, as this is no longer needed.

 More English-language information on the process of upgrading and migrating a Joomla-
powered website can be found on the Joomla help site:
http://docs.joomla.org/Migrating_from_Joomla_1.5_to_Joomla_2.5

6 Read more about Joomla 2.5
This annex to Joomla! 2.5 Beginner’s Guide gives you a comprehensive overview of process of
updating your website to Joomla 2.5. The new version of the CMS offers website owners a wealth of
new features and possibilities. Check the Joomla! 2.5 Beginner’s Guide for mor information or have a
look at the tutorials on http://www.joomm.net. If you have suggestions for new tutorial topics or if
you want to comment, don’t hesitate to contact me through the contact form on
http:/www.joomm.net.

Eric Tiggeler loves to build beautiful and user friendly websites with Joomla 2.5 and has written
several books on Joomla: the Joomla! 2.5 Beginner’s Guide, Joomla! 1.6 First Look and several Dutch
guides to Joomla. See also http://www.joomm.net and http://www.joomla.erictiggeler.nl (in Dutch).


Upgrading your website from Joomla 1.5 to Joomla 2.5 - Eric Tiggeler

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Upgrading your website from Joomla 1.5 to Joomla 2.5 - Eric Tiggeler